Corpse Flowers All Over Are Blooming At Once And It Feels Ominous

What could this mean?!

An Amorphophallus titanum begins to bloom at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG), Thursday, July 28, 2016, in New York. The rare plant releases scent during its brief 24–36-hour peak, like the smell of rotting flesh, the reason the plant is popularly known as the corpse flower. It is the first time since 1939 that the NYBG has displayed a blooming titan-arum. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

People line up to get a look (and a whiff) of corpse flowers when they bloom.

The rare tropical plant takes nearly a decade to form its first bloom and, when it does, the odor it releases is comparable to rotting flesh. The blooms also only last for a day or two.

So, it’s incredibly strange that corpse flowers from Missouri to Florida are suddenly blooming all at the same time.

Corpse flowers come from the warm and balmy Sumatran rainforests, so blooms this time of year are normal. It’s just the simultaneous accounts of blooms that are leading to extreme curiosity.

Daniel Janzen, a professor of biology at the University of Pennsylvania, told theJournal that these plants may be flowering together because they’re related. If the plants are “cousins” or “siblings,” they’d likely mature at the same rate because it’s a way for “slowly maturing plants to improve their chances of cross-pollination.”

Despite each plant being miles and miles apart, their lineage could be keeping them synchronized. But, because botanists aren’t certain of the exact origin of each recently bloomed flower, nothing can be confirmed.

We’re likely not headed for our own version of “Little Shop of Horrors,” but these plants definitely have a secret we’ll never know.